FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

India Proposes Southwest China Use India’s Northeastern States for Indian Ocean Access

Aug. 16, 2018 (EIRNS)—Ram Madhav, National General Secretary of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, and who is close to the administration of Narendra Modi, is visiting China. As BJP politician in charge of northeast Indian affairs, he has proposed the Chinese utilize the northeastern Indian states to secure an access to the Indian Ocean. Currently, India has proposed to Bangladesh a project which would interlink India’s northeastern states to Bangladesh’s port of Chittagong. At the same time, China is trying to get access to the Indian Ocean by developing a port in Myanmar’s Rakhine province.

Madhav, in his proposal, told the Chinese that southwest China can use northeast India as a hub to get to the Indian Ocean through Chittagong, the Times of India reported. What is also interesting is that, along with Madhav, cabinet ministers of three BJP-ruled northeast Indian states—Assam, Tripura, and Nagaland—are also in China looking for a scope of cooperation between the two neighbors, especially in India’s eastern sector.

Although details of Madhav’s proposal have not been made public, the Times of India report suggests Madhav has asked China to connect to the Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) land-based transport agreement, with the aim of facilitating movement of vehicles carrying cargo and passengers in each other’s territory, without the need to transship goods from one country’s truck to the other’s at the border.